welcome to the lower show we'll get the real headlines with none of the mersey we're going live to washington d.c. now it's not going to speak for van jones former white house special advisor about his book rebuild the dream about how to make the country work for one hundred and not only one percent of us and the obsession with labels don't forget he's the right wing's favorite target to call a communist then we'll have our weekly financial checkup with lauren lyster host of the capital account this week one banking c.e.o. wants to act like the whole mortgage crisis that's nothing more than

a collective brain freeze on the part of wall street and then a former strategic intelligence analyst speaks out he used to be the government corporate clients actually wanted to hear the truth now they just want to tailored to their liking we're not all that and more feet and i couldn't get it was of happy hour but first take a look at the mainstream media has decided to miss. our wealth the first friday of the month and that means the jobs numbers have been released by the bureau of labor statistics and as you look back at what happened in the month of march the figures are disappointing to say if least. surprising jobs report hiring slows but unemployment as the unemployment rate continues to fall dropping to eight point two percent that's the lowest in more than two years economists say the jobless rate only went down because more americans stopped looking for work the unemployment rate is now the lowest it has been in more than

three years the unemployment rate ticked down ever so slightly but the number of jobs added falls far below what analysts expected any factoring thirty seven thousand jobs created in manufacturing the economy adding only one hundred twenty thousand jobs in march the smallest increase we've seen now in five months aabs jobs jobs were lose the number again and we want. now after a few months of relatively good news out of his jobs report tell us perhaps most importantly of the recovery that we're technically in is incredibly weak and not guaranteed but also reminds us of another topic we brought up earlier this week see everyone's been asking how it is that we've been seeing the unemployment rate go lower we've seen businesses start hiring again and economic growth hasn't followed along so how are we having a recovery less recovery down the past every depression or recession they've all been followed by a booming recovery so what is it so different this time what's different is how we got into this financial crisis with the difference is the housing bubble burst and

there's so much fixing to do so much damage that's been done but we can't expect a normal recovery this time around and so what's being done to address the wrongs that were committed the massive fraud in terms of selling toxic investments or robo signing of foreclosures well seeing as how they're still have been a criminal prosecutions for bringing down the economy we know how the first one's going the foreclosure fraud on the other hand there are still developments there but everybody is ignoring them and you know that's really too bad because if you think back to february when it was first announced of the five largest banks corti nine states agreed to the largest settlement of this kind in history the media went crazy over it but they mostly focused on the number the twenty five billion dollars that was agreed to and how it had never been done before they were archly ignore that this deal would only scratch the surface and those who lost their homes would get a whopping eight hundred two thousand dollars as a sorry there are other major problems that we've discussed many times on this show

how about the fact that a number of states have already said that they're going to use the funds to attempt to fix their budget deficits not help those afflicted by foreclosure fraud we've also spoken about the fact that the banks themselves will only be paying out five billion in cash and the other twenty or twenty just might end up being put on the tab of investors in mortgage backed securities and believe it or not all the problems that i just named that's. well not the entire list of why this is a bad deal for americans and an easy way out for the banks of the thing is that the agreement was reached in february and march we finally saw the documents but it wasn't until this month this week in fact the federal judge actually approved the settlement and surprise surprise it was approved and very swiftly and actually having a wednesday it was only made public yesterday and the question is whether or not the banks can try to use other people's money to try to pay off the fine and that was an answer perhaps the most telling the most frustrating things about all of this is some of the language just listen to the sentence that nick pointed out

nothing from the consent judgment entered into court in the twenty five billion dollars foreclosure settlement may constitute evidence against the defendant. so in essence the five banks while they have to pay a five they do not have to admit or deny any wrongdoing that's despite the fact that there is a multitude of just so lunch evidence out there proving wrongdoing and fraud i have the banks still get to waive it and not have to confirm or deny that we knew about language of the wording but if just maybe for a second maybe what a judge got to reviewing it before proving it maybe they'd speak up and say you know what this really doesn't sound like anyone's being held accountable but unfortunately that would be wishful thinking and so that ladies and gentlemen is supposed to be called justice and yet every step of the way for really looking at the economy figuring out why the numbers are the way they are what the collapse of the housing market really did to the country and how pathetic the attempts to hold anybody out there accountable are all of that what the mainstream media chooses to

miss. van jones has become both an inspirational and divisive figure as the first former obama administration official to release the book it's giving us an inside look at how thin and the white house think and where they go all wrong not understanding the rest of us the so-called ninety nine percent of this newly formed organization rebuild the dream jones is focusing on community building specific campaigns like addressing student debt finding the right candidates but jones hasn't been vilified just by the right wing with the former communist labels and attacks that forced him out of his job in washington now by supporting and speaking out for the occupy movement there also been a lot of calls that he's just trying to co-opt the popular movement and fit into the mold of the democratic party and the very political system that they see as dysfunctional so how exactly does one rebuild the dream and get everybody on the

same page well joining me from our studio in new york is former white house special adviser then jones he's also author of the new book rebuild the dream. and i want to thank you so much for joining us tonight and where should we start how about we start with the economy i with these new jobs figures that are coming out for the month of march well the last couple of months are actually looking pretty good for the president now we're seeing that this economy is on very very shaky ground specifically the recovery is on very shaky ground and so how exactly do you would go about trying to rebuild the dream if people can't even get to what's probably one of the first steps which is finding a job because people are still giving up and they're not looking for jobs anymore they're stepping out of the market. well sure i mean and before you get a job you often try to get educated and education has also become a big barrier now because of the incredible student loan crisis that we're in we now have one trillion dollars of student debts in the country tuition dead in the

country that's more than all the credit card debt in america if you took every credit card in america stacked it up that pile of debt would be a smaller pile than just a debt this next generation has racked up trying to go to school so if you think about that plus the jobless crisis plus the home mortgage crisis where more than twenty five percent of our homes are underwater in other words american families are paying more for those houses and their worth because they were initially valuated or in some kind of you know fantasy land period of a bubble you've got a major major devastation for america's middle class the jobs numbers may be a little better this month a little better next month a little better last month the jobs numbers might be getting better but the jobs themselves are getting worse because these are not you know well paid jobs often we're talking about service sector jobs you are so also writes talk about the

discouragement that people feel both are older workers who have so much to offer who have sometimes just chosen to call themselves early retirees but they're really been pushed out of the job market and then are younger workers have not been able to transition and so this economy is in very bad shape and if the inability of america's government to step forward and do the things that need to be done in terms of being able to pass laws that would focus on infrastructure and education which i think our state safety net and asking those who have done well in america to do well by america and pay their taxes and pay him fully and pay them without complaint has been blocked. believe me it's going to give them blood both big corporate money and by right wing extremists of the or in congress so we've got a big fight i wrote this book rebuild the dream because guys thought i was somebody who had been a grassroots outsider and then become

a white house insider and became a grassroots outsider again i had a three hundred sixty degree view of some of the destruction of misfires both from the grassroots and from the white house and i thought i had an obligation to put that in writing put that out there for everybody look at that's what the book rebuild the dream dog or want to get into some more of the specifics especially when you call them the right wing extremism first let me ask you one more thing you said that the traditional pathway to get out of poverty if you look at it right some of the steps there were going to college and getting a home those are no longer steps quite the opposite they've become traps and so i mean do we even want to talk about rebuilding the american dream or do we need to have an entire evaluation of exactly what that is and how it is that we need to get there and go about things differently people still need to go to college they need to give up on the idea of owning a home. well i'm not willing to throw away the best parts of

the american dream you know there's some part of the american dream because frankly the american fantasy you know everybody's going to be rich everybody's going to be able to live in the suburbs and have a big mansion and you know buy flat screen t.v.'s to cover up the holes in their lives and just live happily that was the american fantasy that was sold to us by the commercialize ors and and the consumerist that is gone and needs to be gone but there you don't throw the baby out with the bathwater now there are some good things the not the least of which is the idea that anybody in this country should be able to work hard and get somewhere you shouldn't have to be born rich should never be born with a famous last name to be able to apply yourself and give your kids a better life that version of the american dream is precious that's brought people here from all around the world i'm african-american my family didn't choose to come here hundreds of years ago but we have chosen to stay because we want to make good on that promise we should not let that be thrown in the garbage can because the

richest people ever born don't want to pay their taxes which is basically what's going on the country is bankrupt not because we help grandma too much with medicare or because we help the kids too much with scholarships is bankrupt because of the bush tax cuts and because of bush's wars and so we have a responsibility to its least make sure that some of the basic ideas of the american dream are held and tagged. to the point of college homeownership some of these other indicators it could be the case that we will have to buy more creative ways to meet some of our basic needs but we should be doing that not the one percent getting everything the ninety nine percent getting nothing the one percent rising the nine percent falling that's wrong one hundred percent of us need to share in the pain and one hundred percent of us need to share in the game that makes us one country the. seems to be a political party at least one in the country. because that is wrong headed does

not want us to be a nation of neighbors where we would go for each other and it's happy with the top top tip of the one percent getting all the games of the country and giving us all their pain i disagree that's why i wrote the book all right so let's talk about you keep using these numbers the ninety nine percent the one percent one hundred percent i'm curious as to what you think of the occupy movement as a whole i know that you were supportive of the movement right you want to say that you spoke out for the movement you don't call yourself a representative but then there was a lot of people who were very sensitive to that right who felt like maybe you were trying to co-opt it but the occupy movement as it is not being part of the democratic process or the political system that we have and falling into one party or the other do you think that it's viable. of course i do i think i could listen i've been i was the first national so-called democrat to come out. i went on bill maher's show i wrote how can impose when everyone frankly many people on the left

who now sing occupies praises were standing back from it and laughing at it and saying they didn't have good messaging or critiquing the way they look i was one of the first people to come out and say this is one of the most important developments and i brought a piece i said get off the fence every list serv was critical of before the the really blew up and october and september every list list sort of on the left is criticizing them they can fire them they don't have good messaging and i wrote a piece in how people say get off the fence you have young people down there they went to the scene of the crime against their future they're standing up let's stand with them so then you know they want to support them most of them do some of whom have said will now the labor unions move on dot org and van jones and anybody else trying to co-op that's in fact impossible there's only one force in american politics they can never be co-opted and that's occupy you how could you go out and you got to go down there and give them all labatt

a means of the journalist simply i mean they're designed to do not be co-opted and they have a role in the role they've chosen for themselves which i respect is to push the issues to do their own experimentation with direct democracy and come up with their own ideas that's great they remind me. of the student nonviolent coordinating committee snick also occupied the lunch counters they occupied the buses for the freedom rides people occupy the ballot boxes and in the city they were younger idealistic baby pushed ahead but slick was not the entire civil rights movement there were many many many groups in the civil rights movement just as the occupiers don't represent the entire ninety nine percent by definition the names of people and so the rest of us who share the critique and the concern have a responsibility in our own ways to push for their i am a very rare as well there has to be more than one group is what you're saying i

want to just speed it up a little because we don't have too much time to speak about being young idealistic you have taken a lot of flak for some of the things that you've done some of the rallies that you've been through in your past and you know we specifically saw this play a role in why you had to leave the white house and why you had to leave your job at that point i was glad that it was really leading the charge but the thing is is that you know it's now gone it's still there take a listen to something that dana lash said just this week coca-cola decided to side with an admitted marxist nine eleven truth or cop killer supporter yes the. guy who vengeance had cut the son for with his little space mysterio i guess he had organized anti-police marches vengeance for this guy and philadelphia who shot and killed a cop point blank. how do you deal with that right all the time you're being

called not only a communist bad cop killer and truth are better than a lot of labels via who but by who by play by play by people who are extremists and selves who have very little standing in their own country it's a good i don't worry you here's the good you spend your whole time worrying about what people say about you except you did when you were in your twenty's early thirty's then you can't look at the future i'm not ashamed of any of the stuff i did when i was a young person i was angry young man i was looking for answers i was looking in the face of racism i was looking in the face of a prison system that was growing like wildfire i was going to more funerals and i was going to graduations for young people and i was looking for answers some people experience with drugs and alcohol i experimented with world views philosophies and idiology is not and i'm proud to live in a country where if you live in a free country you're free to think whatever you want your freedom whatever books you want you're free to explore whatever you want and you're also free to change

your mind i'm in my forty's now my father i got my more homeowner i was an employer i have my views are different now i believe that we can use well regulated markets to clean up the mess that badly regulated unregulated markets have caused and that's my state at this point but i've never apologized or or or stood down from any of the stuff i did i was younger because you should have the right in this country to be young and to tend to and to think wild thoughts and to embrace utopian ideas and all that kind of stuff and i and i want other people who are young and who are challenging the orthodoxies to feel that you can do that and you can also move on with your life the people who criticize me more to help this country in the past two months fighting to cut mortgages for people who are underwater fighting to get student loans relief for people more in the past two months to help my country devise people have done their whole was not a word. all right but than let me. something this is

a statement that you made that's part of america where we have the freedom of speech everyone supposed to be able to think and say whatever it is they want specially for a political perspective but though the other day you were talking about the libertarian ideology and you said that they have taken this despicable ideology use it as a wrecking ball and then you went on to say they say they're patriots but they hate everybody in america who looks like us they say they love america but they hate the people the ground folk the gays the lesbians the people with piercings you know you all you can't be immigrant bigots and a patriot so you know i mean i feel like that's that's kind of falling into this thing attacking line. well i think we have to i think we have to start punching back and fighting back. to deal you kid you can't take it don't dish it out now that statement i made was over we are already in our strike as you called these people extremists go after you for maybe and you are all political here. they will listen to the best american politics you know you got you guys should know that

politics people people we. never back down from a fight over ideas i think i'm tired and i think a lot of people in america on the american left are tired of a certain section of people acting like they have a monopoly on paper because they don't they're the ones who challenge our patriotism and so now i'm saying ok well we'll let you can play that game if you want you here's what i say about it that statement was overly broad and i said the so-called liberal cherry and i should have said the so-called libertarians who had been a five themselves with this with this sort of a culture right wing camp because there are libertarians and that don't have those views i was overly broad statement but i've met libertarians who say that dr martin luther king dr king was somebody they can't support because someone should have the right to exclude people in this country from being able to go into a restaurant to go into a hotel or go away or go into a place of business solely based on the color of their skin you can't call yourself

a patriot and sin and adopt an extremely the ology who that would spit in the face barking and i will challenge anybody this country is not just about that extreme version of libertarianism it's about liberty and justice for liberty and justice the american ideals are something they're not simplistic and i will stand up for america's ideals against anybody and if you would those things overly broad all libertarians go to be with as i said the so-called libertarians say this and i was talking about is easy to stream libertarians who challenge anybody else's patriotism who won't stand up for dr came and who seem to to look down on so many people in america rather reaching out and trying to help us move forward as one country i grant you very much i appreciate the opportunity i get into all that in my book rebuild the dream now i'm having to you know going to address it on air here we have to take a short break but we will be right back with us. sometimes

you see a story so. you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else here sees some other part of it and realize that everything is all. part of the big picture. mr. nothing to sell

the real headline is that. the problem with the mainstream media today is that we disconnected from the viewers and from what actually matters to those viewers and so that's why young people just don't watch t.v. if they want news they go online and read it and we're trying to take the stories that people actually care about and transfer them back in t.v. . is the state run english speaking russian channel it's kind of like. russia today has an extremely confrontational stance when it comes to us.

hi guys it's time for our weekly financial checkup a look at some of the biggest stories of the week the legislation that's been passed and what its effects might be and how bankers really see the world so today talked about the jobs act of the president signed into law when convicted fraudster fraudsters says it's exactly how people like and make money then jamie dimon wrote a letter to his investors recall the mortgage crisis basically a collective brain freeze and we'll talk about the jobs numbers and ask if really this is a recovery and if it's far from stable here's the scuffs with me lauren lyster host of the capital account on r t r thanks for joining us tonight no problem all right so we'll do jobs numbers last we just got to speak about it with van jones of course and we have to wrap up that interview but let's talk about you know this

jobs act that's being passed some people out there are saying that this thing shouldn't be called a jobs act please anything but in fact this is one former s.e.c. regulator she called it a bucket shop and penny stock for reauthorization act and this other guy mark or z. . it's an invitation to fraud tell us more about it yeah that's the same thing that i've heard echoed from all of my guests from former regulator bill black who is a bipolar criminologist you janet have a koli who is a very well known expert on derivatives so basically what this does is it undoes a lot of the security laws that were brought into place after scandals like enron and world com it allows companies to presumably raise more capital this is supposed to help small businesses to this affine small businesses companies making up to a billion dollars in revenues so this isn't like your typical mom and pop shop or even like a real small business that you think up and it allows them to get out of a lot of accounting rules a lot of audit standards and those are some of the reasons people. critical of it

also really comes into play for my understanding is that a few things there is this gets rid of the wall between research analysts and investment bankers within the same firm so basically you can be underwriting an i.p.o. for a company and you could also be pumping up the stock putting out research reports you know talking it out so that opens up a huge gray area and also it opens up the door to schemes which is kind of a continuation of this where you can go and you can talk up a stock you can pump up the stock knowing that it's not good going to this company sucks and then you know everybody goes into this it's like it is an investor and then you know the company's stock you get out of it the stock price takes and just ordinary people get hurt and a lot of these things are some of the things that were going on that during the world com days during the dot com boom and bust that regulations were passed to avoid again and now they've just been reversed on way back i mean how does something like this get passed it's a bipartisan piece of legislation really wanted to be there when the president signed it and it's it's exactly the opposite direction of what seems like where we

should be going really how do these things get through washington to get so i wish i knew right i think that it's a really good question to ask you know you have to wonder why a bipartisan support and bipartisan agreement can come together on something like this it really seems to just benefit companies and not allowing a lot more getting done doing a lot of the transparency that they've had to give and also benefits wall street in terms of kind of believe way that it gets them you have to wonder this came from president obama's jobs council this is corporate c.e.o.'s one thousand and twenty seven members headed by g.e. chairman jeff immelt so you have to wonder whose interest it serves and literally everyone i've talked to said this is a laundry list of what people who commit fraud what it is a laundry it's a fraudsters wish list the fact that it lies through i think speaks volumes about. washington you know it's a really big problem you know and it's actually nice to have these former fraudsters people who actually have been convicted i guess in the past actually did get in trouble to come out and speak out about. because then it it's embarrassing

and it should be embarrassing for all of washington to see people say things like this lastly too so it's not about this letter to the investors from jamie dimon a lot of people are saying that if you read this thing he's just saying that everyone had brain freeze and that's the entire reason that all this happened yeah jamie dimon is really pretty good at just continuing this p.r. onslaught where he wants to seem like everybody used to blame for the financial crisis and a massive fraud committed and then got bailed out war you know collective i think is the key word you want it to seem like it was everybody's all something like the mortgage crisis i'm sure there were people that you know bit off more they could choose but there's also massive amounts of fraud at the banks and they got the good end of the stick getting a twenty five billion dollars settlement that most people say is a pretty bad deal for homeowners they got a couple thousand bucks for losing their home banks they got a really good deal yet not a lot of shame so i don't want it to be everybody's to to blame he said does the same thing with regulation and says you know we really would be ok with more

regulation after the financial crisis if these regulators work with us more work with us more come on the book or roll is kind of this to the point of wrangling that on everybody obviously exactly the banks are going to get out and lauren lyster thanks thank you. i want to take a quick moment to remind all of our viewers on our project to find out which congress member requested that environmental activist and christopher he put in isolation got a great response and you guys already really need to get involved help us get to the bottom of it you can find information about how to get involved on our facebook page and please if you find anything out e-mail the producers at producer dot com and for more information on tim please visit peaceful uprising. peaceful uprising or if he was the founder of the group and they have the most up to date information about this case there. are we taking another short break we'll be right back.